The Influence of the Course Versus the Instructor in Student Ratings of Instruction: A Multiple Group Discriminant Analysis.

McKee, Barbara G.

Multiple group discriminant analysis was used to determine if college students' evaluations of instruction were influenced by the course, the instructor, both, or neither. A measure of students' course-oriented attitudes, the Adjective Rating Scale (ARS), and a rating of instruction form, the Instructional Development and Effectiveness Assessment Survey (IDEA), were administered to 1,664 college students. It was concluded that students did make distinctions between courses and course instructors, but the distinctions were not clear cut. It was also found that student ratings of teaching behavior overlapped with their ratings of course characteristics, and students' course-oriented attitudes overlapped with their ratings of certain teacher behaviors. Implications of the study were limited by instrumentation and environmental factors, including sampling. (MH)